Adhemar's Wife
by KatharinaVG
Summary: What if in fact, Adhemar was married?  Who is she?  Where does she come from?
1. Chapter 1

Princess Katharina Magdalena Wilhelmina von Dohnanyi of Saxony was bored out of her mind. She didn't understand why these provincial people enjoyed watching two people on horses running at each other with sticks. Why was she forced to sit here? Oh, yeah, she remembered now. Her father, the Elector Charles of Saxony had taken the liberty to arrange her marriage to a man she knew not at all. Sir Adhemar of Anjou. He was competing in this tournament, that's why she was here. According to her father, they were to be married at the end of the tournament. That was a week away.

A sigh of discontent and boredom escaped her lips. Her serving maid, Hannelore was also a close friend and confident of Katharina's. Hannelore looked at Katharina and laughed.

"Your not bored are you?" Hannelore asked with a hint of sarcasm.

"No, not in the least. It's quite riveting in fact." Katharina replied with an equal amount of sarcasm.

Hannelore did not seem to hear her. In fact, she seemed distracted.

"Did you hear me, or are you distracted by some handsome knight?" Katharina laughed and punched her in the arm.

Hannelore flinched and rubbed at her sore arm. "Yes and no. I did hear you, but I am eager to see your intended husband."

Katharina snorted and let out a semblance of a laugh. "Knowing my luck, he will be old and fat."

Hannelore let out a laugh and rolled her eyes. "Have you honestly ever seen an old and fat knight?"

"Well what about old Wilhelm von Lubeck back in Saxony?"

At the mention of this name, Katharina stopped. She didn't want to talk about this man that was partly responsible along with her father and his mistress for ruining her childhood and putting her in her current position.


	2. Chapter 2

Katharina's father, Charles of Saxony married her mother, Konstanze of Hungary when she was only 16 and he was 20. For the first couple of years, the marriage was perfect. Nothing needed to be fixed. Charles was an attentive and faithful husband. Once, when Konstanze was sick, he was said to not be able to concentrate on his duties and had to excuse himself from meetings with his council.

Within a year of the marriage, the first of the couple's nine children was born, Ulrich. Ulrich was followed in rapid succession by Magda, Anna, Wilhelm, Joachim, Reinhard, Martin, Kristina and Katharina who was the baby and favorite of their mother.

Having all those children had consequences for Konstanze. Having nine children in rapid succession ruined Konstanze's once beautiful figure. It also ruined her emotionally. Konstanze refused to have a nanny for her children, she insisted on caring for them herself. She quickly regretted that descision. All the sleepless nights attending to the crying children put a strain on her nerves and made her quick to anger.

While his wife was breaking down, Charles was looking elsewhere for the comfort that Konstanze refused to give him. One after one, the mistresses came. They were always introduced to Katharina and her siblings as "aunt so-and-so". Katharina had no reason to not believe her father, who she adored at that point in ther life. Most of the time Katharina absolutely loved whoever happened to be "aunt so-and-so" at the time. They would frequently bring her ribbons for her curly dark brown hair or sweets that her mother had forbidden her to have. She often would feel sneaky eating those treats. It made her feel good.

When Katharina was twelve years old, her father took a new mistress. This one was different from all the others. She was not nice to Katharina, in fact she was downright rude. This one was Johanna von Wilbersdorf. Johanna had a daughter who was Katharina's age. Her name was Anneliese. Since Saxony was a small kingdom at the time, all the children in the palace were put with the same nanny. For a while Katharina and Anneliese were the best of friends. They would share the same toy, or play make believe and marry different knights. But Katharina started to recognize a pattern. Whenever Katharina and Anneliese were around Johanna, she would be treated like an inferior. Something in Katharina's brain decided that something was wrong. She was the daughter of the Elector of Saxony, and Anneliese wasn't. Or was she? Everybody in the palace knew who the father of Anneliese was, even Konstanze. Charles was the father of Anneliese.

When both of the girls were approaching marriageable age, Johanna decided to take action. Johanna noticed what a beauty Katharina was becoming and how plain her own daughter was.

Katharina inherited her mothers Hungarian looks. Her dark brown locks and eyes that were a mixture of blue, green and grey complimented her skin that was as fair as the snow that capped the Bavarian Alps. She also had the figure of a woman. Already at sixteen, Katharina has a bosom that would put a grown woman to shame. Her breasts were bright and perky. She had hips that would help in having children. Her personality was also something that people were delighted with. Katharina would get along with anybody. All you had to do was be nice. She took an interest in languages, history, travel, religion and music. Her father made sure that all the children in the palace had at least some education. She loved to be outdoors and she absolutely adored riding horses and fencing.

But there was a flaw in her. She was extremely independent. She spent her childhoor seeing her mother humiliated by her fathers mistresses. When this occured her mother would disappear for days and when she would emerge from her solitude, she was pale and had lost weight. No, this would not happen to her. No man was going to boss her around.

Anneliese was the complete polar opposite of Katharina. Anneliese looked like her mother. With blonde, stringy hair and strongly Teutonic feature, Anneliese was not ugly, but to put it simply, she was plain. Anneliese did what she was told to do when she was told to do it. She did not like to go outdoors and enjoy the lovely weather, but she instead remained inside and with her mother hatch a plan to remove Katharina from the limelight.

One night after Charles and Johanna had finished making love, Johanna convinced him to send Katharina to a monastary, because "she is way too independant and too educated for a woman, no man will ever take her for a wife".

The day after, Charles informed Katharina that she would be leaving her life of living in a gilded palace and exchange it for the rustic setting of a monastary. Crushed, Katharina did not know why all of a sudden she was being targeted. She soon found out that Johanna was responsible for her misery. On the day she left, she looked back as the horse she was riding on walked slowely on towards her new life, and vowed that she would get her father and Johanna back for all of this. Someday.

Katharina was only at the monastary until her seventeenth birthday. Her father fetched her with the news that she was to be married. To a man by the name of Sir Adhemar.


	3. Chapter 3

Her thoughts were interupted by the man that she least wanted to see. Her father. She had not totally forgiven her father who was the source of her misery.

But standing with her father was another man. She took the chance to look him over. Handsome, she thought. With his black curly hair and his green eyes, he was by far the most handsome man she had seen in a while.

Her father walked over to where she was sitting and took her hand and helped her up.

"I have someone that I think you will be very pleased to meet."

"Let me guess, since I will be pleased to meet him, it's not you" Katharina relpied tartly.

The man that was with her father spoke: "Young lady, a woman must never speak to a man like that. It is not a woman's place to speak out against men."

Katharina looked the man square in the eye and said: "Who are you to tell me how to act? You don't own me. Or the last time I checked you didn't."

Her father stepped in between the two and broke the silence that had fallen. He looked almost scared because he knew he was the source of his daughter's unhappiness and he was about to bring her even more.

"Katharina, I want you to meet Sir Adhemar"


End file.
